The need to improve efficiency is an omnipresent goal within the package delivery industry. Package volume grows each year, along with customer requirements for greater package tracking and faster delivery. This presents an ongoing challenge to shippers throughout the country, who continuously work to streamline all stages of the package transportation process, from sortation and loading, to routing and delivery.
Carriers typically maintain delivery data for each of the shipments that are forecasted to be delivered by a delivery network. This dynamic data may include a ship date, an origin address, destination address, service level, a forecasted delivery date, a unique identifier (e.g., a tracking number), and exception information. As a package moves through the delivery network, the unique identifier is captured and location information related to the shipment is updated in the associated delivery data record. This delivery record may be accessed using the unique identifier to review the data.
In general, carriers generate a dispatch plan which is the schedule or route through which a carrier assigns work to carrier service providers (such as delivery vehicle drivers) to coordinate and schedule the pickup and delivery of packages. Dispatch plans are well known in the carrier industry and are used daily by commercial carriers to manage driver delivery routes. Once assigned to a vehicle, the packages are routed through the carrier's destination facility to the appropriate vehicle to be loaded thereon.
Typically, a carrier destination facility has a plurality of package cars that are being loaded simultaneously and each package car has a variety of potential storage locations. Loading personnel have the responsibility of ensuring that the packages are loaded in the correct position within a vehicle. An unsatisfied need exists in the industry for improved systems and methods for loading packages.